Of the Father
by Sylandria
Summary: When newly elected Yondaime and soon-to-be father Minato starts experimenting on ancient seals, he never expected one to go awry and carry him twenty years into the future. Minato-centric, no slash, no overt romance, time travel


Of the Father

A/N: Thanks for all your amazing reviews on "On Chance" but unfortunately "On Chance" is suffering some writers block. So in order for me to put some semblance of order for _that_ one, my brain says "Hey, maybe you should try this out instead!" It doesn't help that I've lost my notes for "On Chance" since chapter 3 and was mostly going on a wing and a prayer. This one is planned out actually.

1.

"I'm gonna be a mother-dattebane!"

Minato took a hesitant step out of the kitchen, mixing bowl still in hand and pink apron around his waist. Looking at his happy wife in disbelief, he asked, "A baby?" He knew she'd not been feeling well the last few weeks since their secret marriage and ensuing short honeymoon. He'd been worried, but a baby hadn't even entered his thoughts.

"Uh-huh! A mother!" Kushina's hands came to cup her stomach low, giggling in pure happiness. Minato thought she'd never looked more beautiful. A possessive part of him thought that pregnancy agreed with her.

But, at this moment he couldn't even agree with himself. He found that he couldn't help but stare, took a step towards his beautiful wife and stutteringly said, "And.. I'm going to be a father."

"A Mother-dattebane!"

Stepping closer he couldn't help but grin, "A father!"

Laughing, she stepped closer to him and said again, "A mother!"

Wrapping his arms around her he laughed, "A father!"

And thus the beginning of his little family began. They told Jiraiya first of course. Then Minato's predecessor , the Sandaime. Both men congratulated the happy couple and began to make plans for the birth of their child. Sandaime let both of them know that Kushina's seal, as she was the current holder of the Kyuubi no Yoko, would weaken during that time and could let out the demon. Both Kushina and Minato accepted wholeheartedly their assistance. They wanted to be a family with their child, and not let the demon escape.

Life pretty much went on after that. Minato didn't shirk his duties as newly instated Yondaime. He simply made time off when Kushina had secret doctor's appointments. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't miss a thing about the pregnancy of his first child.

He had to hold back his emotions when the ultrasound gave him and Kushina the first picture of their child. Kushina, of course, had no objections to crying and bawled into his shoulder as the doctor pointed out the developing limbs and head.

"Isn't it beautiful, Minato?"

"Yeah, it is. Still hard to believe."

She turned her tear and snot covered face up to his and smiled beautifully. "I know! I never thought I'd be ready for motherhood, but now… I want it more than ever."

He squeezed her hands tight with repressed emotion. "I know. I want to be a father to this child so badly now that I know it's here." He brushed back some of her wild red hair and smiled impishly. "We're going to have to get a bigger apartment."

She giggled and wiped her face off with a tissue that had been passed to her from the doctor. Kissing his cheek, she went back to staring at the picture on the screen. "Yeah, we will. Eventually."

Indeed, life went on as usual. Minato had to deal with the dreaded paperwork and council meetings. He had to go to ribbon cuttings and funerals for deceased Shinobi. He handed out missions of all calibers and, against his better judgment, admitted his student Kakashi into ANBU Corps and put his wife onto inactive duty. He knew his student would do well, but the boy was young at thirteen to be entering into a dangerous part of the Konoha military. Looking into his remaining student's eyes that day, it broke his heart to see how old Kakashi's eyes seemed. He'd seen too much death and it took a lot of begging from the boy to get Minato to allow him in. Kushina yelled at him for a few days in a way that warned him of future pregnancy moods and put him on the couch, but he eventually made it up to her.

It was one such usual day that Minato started to think as he was sorting through mission reports. He wanted Konoha to look into better sealing tactics. Ones that didn't have such a high failure rate and that could be learned easily and early into a Shinobi's career to advance their survival. Only the gods knew how much seals had saved his life as a Shinobi. He also wanted something that he could pass on to his family as heirlooms from his side, other than the Hiraishin no jutsu because that was actually Nidaime's, as the Uzumaki already had immense Fuuinjutsu that could be passed down.

So he started to research. And as days turned into nights turned into weeks and months, he found his wife at five months of pregnancy and himself no closer at improving seals or jutsu. But he'd gotten the chance to meet his son, newly christened Naruto after Jiraiya's first book, "The Tale of the Gutsy Ninja." Ecstatic that the child was still going strong and that he'd be getting a boy, Minato went to work the next day carrying an ultrasound picture of the boy in his pocket of his Jounin vest.

Opening the door with a flick of blood on the sensitive seals, he stepped into the room plopped down into his chair with a billowing sigh. Rubbing a hand over his eyes, he decided to push aside one set of paper work for a stack of seals he really had been meaning to work on. Rummaging through them, he sighed and threw his pencil on the table.

"I'm missing something, I know it," he murmured. Getting up off the chair, he moved over to the small hidden library where Sandaime had hidden a lot of classified seals and books. Releasing the complex Genjutsu, the blonde tapped his bottom lip with a finger as he browsed the selection.

Going so fast he nearly missed it, Minato's eyes tripped, looked back and skidded to a halt at the book. It was obviously old with the Senju clan insignia on the worn spine. Carefully prying the book from its place Minato stared at the treasure trove of information that he knew that other Kage would kill for.

"'Seals of Time and Space' by Shima Senju eh?" He'd never heard of the man. Sitting down and carefully placing the old book on his desk, he opened it gingerly and looked on the innermost cover for some sign of a date. After not finding anything on the first two pages, the third finally yielded results.

And.. Minato choked in disbelief. "Five hundred years old? _Damn_." Eagerly turning the page to the table of contents, the Yondaime read that the book explained the theories of time and space and how seals could theoretically be applied to them.

If humans could summon creatures from other realms, and despite being advanced creatures, they aged faster than what would be expected, what's to say that using the same seals or similar seals people could transport themselves into the future or past with the application of a certain amount of chakra and correct seals?

As day burned into afternoon and half a notebook filled itself with notes, he turned to a middle page of the book and a piece of parchment slid out. Curious, he carefully opened the paper and spread it out. At first glance, he thought it nothing but scribbles. Glancing again, however he realized that those scribbles were carefully constructed arrays for a seal that had Nidaime's key signature at the bottom.

As he was about to study it further, a brisk knock sounded on his door and he whipped his head up and barked a quick "Enter." When his secretary Chunin entered, he stared at her for explanation.

The girl blushed and he sighed, hating fangirls. But the woman did her job and that's what counted. He watched as she took a steadying breath and said, "Uh, Sir, its nearly six-thirty at night. Your wife called and wanted to know how much longer you'd be staying."

"SIX-THIRTY?!" He gaped. He'd been reading constantly for close to eight and a half hours. "Ah, I'm leaving now, Chihiru-san. Thank you." He gave a faint laugh and carefully folded up the old parchment, closed his notebook and book and placed both of them back on the shelf where he could tend to them on the next day. Ushering the girl out, he initiated the seals, waved to errant ANBU and focused on the Hiraishin seal for at his home.

Arriving in his front yard, he opened the door cautiously and called out, "Kushina? I'm home!"

"Minato!" Her face poked out of the kitchen followed by her pregnant body holding a bowl of steaming salty ramen. "Where have you been! I was worried."

Walking up to his wife, he gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I was at the office, working on some seals. I found something fantastic that I'm going to try and cultivate for the future."

Wrapping his arm around her, he helped her balance her meal and walked her to the living room where she sat down with a grunt and answered him, "Really? Sounds interesting."

Walking back into the kitchen, he helped himself with a bowl and walked back in before answering. "Yeah, I figured since our boy, " man, did he love saying that, "is going to have a treasure trove of family history from his Uzu Princess mother, " Kushina stuck out her tongue at him, "I figured he needed something from his father's side as well. So I'm working on some family seals." When Kushina opened her mouth, Minato hastily clarified, "_Other_ than Hiraishin no jutsu."

He chuckled and sat beside her as she began to pout. "I understand… I guess. Just make sure that you at least call me or send a ninja with a note saying you are gonna be late, okay?"

Kissing her, he said, "I will."

Back in the office early the next day, Minato read the rest of the book. A month later he noted some of the seals he'd drawn and realized he practically finished this seal and really wanted to test them to see if they worked. But hence his problem would be on how to return.

He wanted to make sure that, like summon seals, after a certain amount of chakra had expired, he could reverse-summon himself back to his own time.

It made total sense… in theory.

He would test it in a few days after he made more critical checks over the seals. He would treat this seal no differently than he did any of his other important seals.

"Minato, you look busy."

Jerking his head up he smiled at the familiar visage of his predecessor, Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime. "Ah, yes I am actually. I found this in the sealed bookshelf and I'm toying around with it to see if there is a way to safely test it." He held up the book and his notes and was pleased to see the old man gasp.

"Time travel?" Sandaime tapped his chin, deep in thought.

"Yeah, temporary though. I want it to be like a summon. The seal is of course bound to my blood so if someone should find it and realize what it truly is, they can summon and reverse-summon me or someone very closely related to me, my children or grandchildren would be the furthest I would think. The more chakra I or someone else uses, the longer the person summoned can stay and possible the further in time I or they can go."

"This.. is a difficult venture you are going on, Minato."

"I know. But I want to leave Naruto with something from my side. Something… that I could teach him that came from me other than Hiraishin no Jutsu." He pushed his notes towards himself and sighed. "I've completely reworked what I've found and created my own seals. I plan on testing them tomorrow after I do some final checks."

"So soon?"

Minato nodded and gave a half-laugh. "I started the day after we found out Naruto was a boy, so really it's not so soon."

Sandaime simply hummed and stared at Minato. "I would hope you have contingency plans."

Minato bobbed his head in an obvious yes. "Of course I do, my friend. They are right here." He patted a small book with his findings and how to forcibly reverse summon him back should there be an emergency. Minato leaned back in his chair, stretching his back out to work out kinks. "I still need to tell Kushina about my plans, so she doesn't freak if I am gone for several days. I've incorporated a special version of the seal in case something goes wrong with… you know."

Sarutobi nodded. "I was just about to ask about that."

"Well, you have them. Here. I mean it, old friend. If there is the slightest issue with her or our son, you summon me back here _immediately_."

"Of course we will. We wouldn't have you miss anything for the world."


End file.
